I’m watching a recorded episode of Alton Brown’s Good Eats, “Tofuworld,” and he and the narrator are pronouncing the word “soy” with two syllables. The pronunciation that the show is using sounds like “so’-wee”, with a long o in the first syllable.
He didn’t say anything about this (unlike the “Toast” episode where he went into the pronunciation of “bruschetta” as “broo-SKET-ta”) and I suspect if this was the “proper” pronunciation he’d say that. Is this just a regional accent creeping in, or have I been saying it wrong all along?
Alton’s Southern accent doesn’t get out to play much, but this is definitely one of those words that shows it, yes. Have you seen the episode where he has his grandmother on and they make biscuits? I disremember exactly what it is now, but he calls her some dyed-in-the-cotton Southern-style variation of “MeeMaw.”
He also says “greezy” instead of “greasy.” Maybe it’s a Georgia thing, maybe he’s just weird that way. At least he doesn’t say EVVO or have a garbage bowl.
I do know that term (which I’d pronounce like “soy’-uh”), but the “so’-wee” was a new one on me. He said that as he held up a bag labeled “soya chips” (“so’-wee chips”) and other items spelled as “soy.”
It’s probably instructive that as a Southerner (whose accent creeps in and out) I don’t really see any difference in the two pronunciations you describe. Even when I say “soi”, it sounds a little like “so-wee”. It’s just how we roll.
I’m the farthest thing from southern, but I say at least 1.5 syllables for both soy and boy. “OY” has two seperate vowel sounds that I really don’t think fit all that well into one syllable. Unless I make it really short, forced and cut off, at which point it sounds like I;m making fun of Japanese.
Yeah, mistyped that. I used to like Rachael Ray, but she has gotten on my nerves lately. Alton Brown never does, even when he says “so-ee” and “greezy.”
The “greasy/greezy line” describes one of the U.S. linguistic isogloss, not an idiosyncratic pronunciation. Other examples often cited are vocabulary- rather than phoneme-based: Soda/pop/soda pop, bag/sack/poke, hero/sub/submarine/hoagie, milkshake/frappe/cabinet, etc. Phone,e-based examples include marry/Mary/merry, and aunt/ant. Here’s a nice map (U.S. toward the bottom). Here’s another, with a nice discussion. I used to have a link to a site that guessed your dialect based on your responses to a set of questions. Maybe somebody has it and can post it.
